caucus race

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. The competitive process in which a political party selects their candidate, especially presidential; a primary election via caucus.

n. A political competition; the game of campaigning and one-upmanship to get votes and be elected.

n. A laborious but arbitrary and futile activity; an activity that amounts to running around in a circle, expending great energy but not accomplishing anything.

n. A win-win system; a positive system in which everybody wins.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From caucus ("special party meeting for vote allocation") + race ("contest between people").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From caucus ("regular party committee meeting of elected MPs") + race ("contest between people"); a reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapter III "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale", being a nonsensical satire thereof: all participants have to run in circles until until an arbitrary end is called and everyone is declared a winner; Alice has to give prizes to them all, and being declared a winner too she is solemnly taken and awarded back her own thimble.